1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method for installing a software bundle on a computer, more particularly to one that facilitates installation of software bundles on a plurality of target computers.
2. Description of the Related Art
The installation of software bundles, such as operating systems, hardware driver software and application software, is time-consuming, complicated, and tedious, but is an unavoidable task.
For the end user, when installing software, aside from the need to perform a series of swap-in-swap-out actions for floppy disks or CD-ROMs, the user has to react appropriately to messages shown on the computer. Otherwise, improper computer operation can result which would require re-installation of the software. Furthermore, in the event of software damage caused by damaged storage mediums or virus attacks, the only remedy is to re-install the software, which is troublesome and time-consuming.
For the manufacturer, pre-installation of operating systems, hardware driver software and application software before delivery has become a requirement of most consumers. Since computers are manufactured in batches, typically in units of thousands, it will not be cost-effective to manually install software on each computer. Therefore, computer manufacturers nowadays apply an image file installation technique during the process of installing software bundles on large numbers of computers.
In the conventional method, a reference storage space (or the whole hard disk or other types of storage mediums) having a software bundle resident therein is first coded into an image file. Then, the image file is decoded for storage in the target storage space of each of a plurality of target computers having identical hardware configurations in an assembly line. Since the target storage spaces of the computers have the same contents, the computers are thus installed with the same software bundle.
A drawback of the conventional method resides in that only one image file is used at a time. The conventional method is thus suitable for the mass production of computers with only one set of hardware and software configuration, and cannot be applied when computers with more than one set of hardware and software configuration are to be produced at the same time. Furthermore, the conventional method requires downloading of the image file from a reference storage medium to each target computer for subsequent decoding. The downloading task is time-consuming, and affects the production yield.